Here are the new releases from Crossroad Press for January and February 2025. Unless noted otherwise, you can purchase any of them at Amazon, B&N, Apple, Google Play, Smashwords, or Kobo.
by C. T. Phipps
(Release date – 1/6/2025)
“So, what you’re saying is the Dragon Queen is dead.”
“No, what I’m saying is the Dragon Queen is dead and there’s an imposter carrying on in her place. Possibly someone you know. Your girlfriend’s ex is back from the dead. Your brother is evil. A dead god is trying to take over your body. We’re running out of time until it becomes impossible to save the world. Also, I’m pretty sure the giant blind redheaded swordswoman chick wants to bang you to death.”
“So, normal Tuesday.”
Aragorn “Aaron” Bartkowski and his merry band of miscreants are back! Having successfully slain the demon god Chernabog, they’ve managed to buy a little more time for the planet Mokosh. However, a hero’s work is never done, especially when a hero is underleveled and with low WIS. From a mission to a haunted vampire-filled castle to rescue the little girl Pope to the deeps of elven territory to the heart of Ledziana’s civil war, Aaron must now engage with the complicated politic underlying the dark fantasy setting he’s found himself in. It’s win or die when playing the games of kings and queens, though, and our hero is absolutely terrible at them.
GUARDIANS OF DRAGON KEEP is the second volume of the Dark Undermaster Saga, a humorous send up of dark fantasy like Game of Thrones, The Witcher, and Dark Souls. It is a progression fantasy LitRPG that follows the adventures of video game computer programmer, Aaron Bartkowski as he is hurled bodily into the world of his favorite author, Larry C.C. Weis. Unfortunately, Weis turns out to have been much better at stealing from other, better, authors than he was in giving his heroes a break.
Frozen: Book One of the Ulysses Grove Series
(Release date – 1/9/2025)
Deep in the Alaskan wilderness, a mummified body is discovered in the ice, the victim of a bizarre ritualistic killing that happened nearly six thousand years ago. For journalist Maura County, this story is her ticket to the big time—if she can get the help of the FBI’s top profiler.
Special Agent Ulysses Grove is the best of the best—a born manhunter. He’s also a man on the edge, haunted by both personal tragedy and a recent spate of horrific, unsolved homicides. Now, in a remote lab, he’s about to make a shocking discovery. Everything about the prehistoric murderer—signature, M.O., the tiniest of details—matches up to the serial killer who has eluded Grove for months.
As past and present collide, County and Grove are plunged into a nightmare journey that will take them into the darkest reaches of the human heart as they try to stop a cycle of evil as eternal and powerful as time itself…
(Release date – 1/14/2025)
Jack Smith is forty-five years old. He has been that age from the moment he took breath in the war-torn London of 1916, and will be until to the end of his existence. He is a near-immortal observer of humankind, an instrument of its creators who are considering the future of their troublesome handiwork. Jack lives among us, experiencing human joy and heartbreak through a century of tumult, war, disaster, tragedy and pain.
And now, just as he has once more found love, the creators want him back and have sent their Hound to run him down.
Jack is in a race against time to perform a final act of compassion for the woman he loves before he is torn away from the world he has come to call home.
(Release date – 1/14/2025)
THE FEAR IS GROWING
From the moment he saw the ancient castle rising out of the picturesque Scottish countryside, filmmaker Dan Martin knew he’d found the ideal location for his vampire horror movie. And nothing could make him leave. Not the eerie legends of soul-stealing beasts of the night…nor a bizarre series of freak accidents. Not even his pregnant wife’s tragic miscarriage.
THE TERROR IS BORN
Except that now there is another fetus growing in Vicki’s womb. But little Darian is not going to be a normal baby. The Martins’ adopted ten-year-old son Marty will soon find that out. In fact, Marty will soon know exactly what his new brother really is.
(Release date – 1/19/2025)
It is 150 years in the future and Sam Adams waits impatiently to be contacted by the Resistance. As Book 3 in the Dreamfarer series begins, the attack on the New York Dream Services Center is just three days away, and yet he’s heard nothing! Closing the Center and waking 2.5 million Dreamers would be the biggest blow yet to cripple the Dream factories and wake up Americans, saving them from their dependence on machine-induced dreams to fill their otherwise dull existence.
Sam is contacted by Rogers, the mission’s leader, and a diverse group forms. Besides Rudolph, fifteen more members arrive. Rudolph uses a device so the group can study the Center’s vast interior. A mole in the Center advises them on how to carry out the mission. But who is the mole and can they trust him?
When Sam learns that one of their members is a Government spy assigned to capture or kill him, he distrusts everyone, even Ada, his love interest, and wonders if he should cancel the mission. Either way, he has only hours to decide.
by Simina Lungu
(Release date – 1/21/2025)
Deirdre Morgan is a Reconstructor working at the Rust-city Criminal Investigations Agency. She is one of the Touched, people with extrasensory perception serving society but always kept on the fringes, feared and mistrusted for what they can do. Deirdre has been transferred from one team to another, until she becomes a part of Agent Sebastian Cadwalder’s unconventional squad.
Everything changes when Deirdre’s new team must look into the kidnapping of the famous Gaila Starborne, beloved opera singer, daughter of a powerful businessman, and fiancée of the first alien ambassador on Earth. Conspiracies will be unmasked, painful secrets will be uncovered, and by the end of it all the world will feel a little less safe…
Part science-fiction, part mystery, A Song for Rust-City blends atmosphere and suspense, offering an entertaining and thoughtful glimpse into a possible future.
(Release date – 1/25/2025)
In the twenty-one tales featured in Michael Laimo’s new collection, normal folks begin their day as simply as can be, unassuming of the Dreadful Things lying patiently in wait, poised to crush their spirits and devour their souls.
From his very first published story, 11:11, to the most recently written, previously unpublished, The Final Appearance of the Juggling Jester, these stories showcase the author at his finest, spanning an impressive thirty-year career.
Along with a hand-picked selection of previously collected works, four brand-new, previously unpublished tales of horror also help fill the pages of this transfixing read.
Sit back, crack the book, and submit to the Dreadful Things
Twisted: Book Two of the Ulysses Grove Series
(Release date – 1/29/2025)
FBI profiler Ulysses Grove’s escape to a peaceful rural retreat is shattered by a new case that thrusts him back into the harrowing world of serial killers—and a fight against evil that will take him to the edge of sanity and into the very eye of mortal danger…
In the heart of New Orleans, a serial killer is at work. While the city struggles to rebuild, he seeks only to destroy. His victims are offerings, surrounded by objects as mysterious as the French Quarter itself. For Special Agent Ulysses Grove the case is personal. The latest victim, a respected Tulane professor, was also a dear friend whose death holds startling clues to this madness. As Grove and journalist Maura County pore through cold cases and the dead man’s half-destroyed notes, a terrifying truth begins to a Mayan expedition gone wrong, an ancient civilization, ritual human sacrifices, and a serial killer who has tapped the secrets of indestructible power.
Now, as a storm season threatens the Gulf Coast, Grove is on the hunt for a twisted psychopath with a deep connection to his own past—one who sees Grove as the ultimate trophy…
by Alison Scott
(Release date – 2/2/2025)
… a music so sweet that time itself stands still …
Flanked by dolphins and swordfish, Floki Magnusson’s Silver Dragon sails past the Pillars of Hercules into the Roman Sea. At the helm, with Janetta at his side, stands Gil Lake of Tir nan Og.
Far behind lies Mont Tombe where the triumph of rescuing Ismail and Hakon was darkened by betrayal and treachery. Danni, sold on again by the island fortress’s earl, is yet in chains: her new master, Jocelyn Guidbairn, the Golden Knight.
Travelling overland and surrounded by soldiers, the usurper of Camelot makes pilgrimage to Rome, sealing his claim to Arthur’s crown. No match on land for Guidbairn’s army, the Northmen follow by sea.
But as Silver Dragon and Hakon’s Sea-Raven sail one course, their masters are bitterly divided. Floki’s capture of Eirik, the Norwegian Sea-King’s son, has cost Hakon his future happiness. Pledged to wed the boy’s beautiful sister, he is now her enemy. Still, he grimly honours the ties of kinship as, reading wind, stars, and the word of Moorish traders and fishermen, his cousin pursues his own lost love.
On the sun-warmed decks of Silver Dragon, Ragi and Ismail compete for Rachel’s favours. Percy and Eirik build huts of oars and sailcloth. And Gil, with the ship at his command and Janetta at his side, knows the joy of Time Out of Time.
Ahead lies 9th Century Rome where amid pilgrims, traders’ caravans and the swordfights of petty chieftains, they will meet their quarry at last. And meet, too, the lost daughter of a mysterious Irish chieftain and a boy with the ancient harp of the High-King’s of Tara, on which he plays a music that draws apart the threads of time.
Come sail the sunlit southern seas and follow the pilgrim road to Rome. Come with the Warriors of Tir nan Og.
by Tim Jeffreys
(Release date – 2/4/2025)
An ancient evil inhabits the moors that surround Dobcroft. And it wants to come in from the cold.
When Julie Swann flees her husband and job in the city, she thinks she’s leaving her problems behind. But the small Yorkshire village she escapes to has some terrifying secrets.
When romance blossoms with old school friend Aaron Carter, Julie finds herself drawn into the horrors he’s unwittingly stumbled into.
And now…anyone they know could be one of them.
(Release date – 2/11/2025)
AIKEN MILL, VIRGINIA… A legend-haunted town in Sylvan County, located in a remote, mountainous corner of the state. With its long history of countless deaths and disappearances, Aiken Mill has become known to law enforcement as “The Cold Case Capital of the World.”
Now, an unidentified, mutilated body has turned up in the town. During his investigation, Sheriff Bryce Parrott discovers frightening clues that lead him to believe some ghostly force—or entity—may be responsible for the killing.
While exploring the darkest corners of Sylvan County, psychology professor Martin Pritchett and his brother, Phillip, happen upon a crumbling, century-old house beside a body of water called Black Tooth Pond. A strange compulsion leads both men back to the house time and time again, but neither can remember any of the events that occur there.
As both Sheriff Parrott and the Pritchett brothers attempt to solve their respective mysteries, their paths begin to converge—paths that lead inexorably to the ancient, foreboding house at Black Tooth Pond.
The Wages of Belief and Other Stories from the Dark Side
(Release date – 2/18/2025)
*Henson Darrow, college student, receives a desperate phone call from his brother in the Appalachian community of Beacon Cove, a place Henson had wanted to leave for good. His brother begs Henson to return, for their father is missing. Their father is the community’s sineater, a terrifying position that is feared yet required by the religious people who live there. Henson seeks the advice of Joel Barker, a man who has escaped the clutches of Beacon Cove. Joel hesitates to advise Henson, however. And so, returning to Beacon Cove, Henson sets out on a journey of trepidation and then terror as he, himself, is charged with the horrible responsibility of cleansing sin from those who die. The Wages of Belief is a standalone sequel to Massie’s Stoker-winning novel, Sineater.
*A woman enamored with a certain soap opera believes she has been cast in a secret episode that is filming in the local grocery store. Not the best idea in the long run when simple mistakes become huge.
*Three young sisters seek the truth of a man’s death in a dark basement filled with a hoard of peculiar items.
*A clumsy murderer finds himself caught up in something worse than legal entanglement.
*Topsy, the Coney Island elephant electrocuted by Thomas Edison to prove the power of direct current, seeks revenge as an angry, though rather hapless, spirit.
*Sink holes begin appearing at a rapid pace, not ordinary sink holes but deep cavernous pits that seem to have minds of their own.
These are just some of the tales of darkness and dread found in The Wages of Belief and Other Stories from the Dark Side, a new collection by Bram Stoker Award-winning Elizabeth Massie.
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“Elizabeth Massie is personally one of my favorite authors. Her writing is true, heartfelt, and wildly original. She is one of the greats.” – Bentley Little, author of The Association, DMV, The Bank
“Massie’s sharp observations and eye for detail bring her characters to life.” – Publishers Weekly